Political Scene: Paul Ryan’s Gamble

Just last month, Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity had the overwhelming support of G.O.P. congressmen, and Ryan looked, as Dorothy Wickenden put it on this week’s Political Scene podcast, “like the future of the Republican party.” Now? “It’s looking at this stage like Ryan’s plan, which was a very long one, might turn into the longest suicide note in history,” said John Cassidy, who joins Wickenden and Ryan Lizza on the podcast.

Our Medicare system is “essentially going broke” and that is “a serious problem,” Cassidy continued, “but Ryan came up with probably the most radical way to deal with it possible, and, in doing so, he’s terrified everybody who’s over the age of fifty, I think, and it’s turned into a political nightmare for the Republicans.”

Health care is a particular nightmare for Mitt Romney, who is currently in an awkward position regarding universal health, Lizza said: he is “trying to define the mandate in Massachusetts as perfectly acceptable and yet the mandate at a national level as an affront to liberty.” The mandate is what conservatives most vehemently reject to about ObamaCare, which means, Lizza said, that “Romney has a major political problem on his hands, that the thing that Republicans hate the most about Barack Obama—that idea Barack Obama got from Mitt Romney.”